A microanalysis of colloid osmotic pressure

Summary A needle type of colloid osmometer has been devised with special attachments which made it useable with 3-l samples. It has been used in oncometry of fresh water teleosts to give the following results: 5.1±1.0 mm Hg for goldfish, 5.2±0.71 mm Hg for carp, and 14.3±0.75 mm Hg for eel.This study was supported in part by Research Grant 387036 from the Ministry of Education of Japan.invited to National Institute of Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.     

Directional non-uniformity of pulsatile intramyocardial pressure

Summary A method using piezoelectric ceramics was newly devised which permitted measurements of intramyocardial pressure. In open-chest dogs, a directional non-uniformity of the intramyocardial pressure was observed, which may be attributable to the variation in the myocardial fibre orientation.     

Directional non-uniformity of pulsatile intramyocardial pressure.

A method using piezoelectric ceramics was newly devised which permitted measurements of intramyocardial pressure. In open-chest dogs, a directional non-uniformity of the intramyocardial pressure was observed, which may be attributable to the variation in the myocardial fibre orientation.     

Water movement between myocardial tissue and capillary blood during and after coronary reactive hyperemia as studied by continuous measurement of colloid osmotic pressure of cardiac venous blood

Summary Colloid osmotic pressure (COP) of blood from the great cardiac vein was continuously measured by the use of a membrane colloid osmometer during reactive hyperemia resulting from temporary occlusion of the anterior descending branch of left coronary artery. The COP increased sharply but transiently after the release, then it decreased below the initial level and gradually recovered. It was concluded that a measurable amount of water moved from the capillary blood into the myocardial tissue and then flowed back slowly into the capillary blood.     

The Shigella flexneri effector OspI deamidates UBC13 to dampen the inflammatory response

Many bacterial pathogens can enter various host cells and then survive intracellularly, transiently evade humoral immunity, and further disseminate to other cells and tissues. When bacteria enter host cells and replicate intracellularly, the host cells sense the invading bacteria as damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by way of various pattern recognition receptors. As a result, the host cells induce alarm signals that activate the innate immune system. Therefore, bacteria must modulate host inflammatory signalling and dampen these alarm signals. How pathogens do this after invading epithelial cells remains unclear, however. Here we show that OspI, a Shigella flexneri effector encoded by ORF169b on the large plasmid and delivered by the type ΙΙΙ secretion system, dampens acute inflammatory responses during bacterial invasion by suppressing the tumour-necrosis factor (TNF)-receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6)-mediated signalling pathway. OspI is a glutamine deamidase that selectively deamidates the glutamine residue at position 100 in UBC13 to a glutamic acid residue. Consequently, the E2 ubiquitin-conjugating activity required for TRAF6 activation is inhibited, allowing S. flexneri OspI to modulate the diacylglycerol-CBM (CARD-BCL10-MALT1) complex-TRAF6-nuclear-factor-κB signalling pathway. We determined the 2.0 ? crystal structure of OspI, which contains a putative cysteine-histidine-aspartic acid catalytic triad. A mutational analysis showed this catalytic triad to be essential for the deamidation of UBC13. Our results suggest that S. flexneri inhibits acute inflammatory responses in the initial stage of infection by targeting the UBC13-TRAF6 complex.     

Experimental Losses and Optimum Conditions for Phenanthrene Extraction

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of pollutants that are widespread in the environment. Their hydrophobic properties make accurate analyses very difficult. In addition, the experimental losses during extraction of PAHs are inevitable and of great concern. In this study, dichloromethane (DCM), chloroform (CF), and carbon disulfide (CDS) were used as solvents to extract phenanthrene (PHN), a typical PAH, at various temperature and pressure reduction conditions. The extraction was improved using a multiple microtube extraction methodology. The results indicate that the CDS had the best performance followed by CF and DCM at 25℃ and standard pressure. This was ascribed to the intensity of the molecular interactions between the solvent, the water, and the PHN due to their different molecular structures leading to different stereo and hydrogen bonding effects. The optimum conditions for extraction of PHN by CDS were determined by correlating the experimental results. The regression shows that the experimental loss rate is linearly proportional to the pressure reduction and exponentially related to the temperature. The correlation can be used to improve extraction efficiencies.